


If Keeping Secrets Were Justice

by floofboy



Series: affirmation, not confirmation [1]
Category: Senyuu. (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bodyswap, M/M, Minor Violence, Senyuu Season 4 Spoilers, Soulmates, through the vortex of time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 13:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19702054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floofboy/pseuds/floofboy
Summary: Ros knows that Alba isn't his soulmate. He might've spent his twentieth birthday trapped in some jail, but he does know that whoever it was had an insane amount of magic, and was just a little bit taller than his future self.Alba, weak, short, Alba, couldn't possibly be his soulmate, and Ros is happy with that.





	If Keeping Secrets Were Justice

**Author's Note:**

> me: what if... soulmate AU... but both Ros and Alba weren't sure they were soulmates......
> 
> I was an extra 5k words into this when I realized that it was getting pretty different from the first half (namely, leaning more into my preferred flavour of "man this albatross is fucked up"), so posting this now and maybe I'll post the other stuff later if I ever finish it.

Creasion doesn’t even realize it’s his twentieth birthday until he wakes up, feeling well-rested in a way he hasn’t for years, in a cell. 

To be more precise, he doesn’t realize it’s his twentieth birthday until he hauls himself off the bed and sees himself - looking much less world-weary, but still himself - sitting on a flimsy foldup chair outside of the cell, a book in his hand. 

_Ah,_ he thinks, _I'm in my soulmate's body, on_ their _twentieth birthday._

Their eyes meet. 

“So you’re awake,” says his other self. He smiles, and Creasion almost recoils at how strange it seems, at how he’s apparently become capable of being _happy_ again, in a world where his father was a demon lord and his only friend as good as dead. 

(It’s like his future self has reverted to being Sion again, and so that’s what he’ll call him.)

“Where am I?” demands Creasion, and grimaces at the strange, unfamiliar sounds coming from his throat. “ _Who_ am I?”

“That would be telling,” says his other self, says Sion. The older boy grins wider, and snaps his book shut. “And I was never told the answers to those questions.”

“So you won’t tell me either.” Creasion can’t help but scowl a little. 

“And eventually, you will also not tell yourself,” Sion says cheerily. 

Creasion rubs at his forehead - or well, it wasn’t _his_ forehead, really. 

He rubs at his soulmate’s forehead. 

“This is giving me a headache,” he mutters. 

“If this is enough to give you a headache, I’m afraid to say it just gets worse from here on out.”

Creasion glares at him. “And yet you seem very happy.”

“I like seeing people frustrated.” Sion smirks. “Even you, _Hero Creasion_ -“ the title is said with great mockery, and Creasion would bristle if it hadn’t been his future self speaking “-remember that feeling, right?”

“I remember the feeling,” Creasion says coolly, and can’t help the pang of nostalgia it triggers. “But I can’t afford to indulge in it. You can?”

“Can’t say,” Sion says blithely. 

“Is the Demon Lord defeated?”

“Can’t say.”

Creasion bites back a growl. “Have… have you put Crea to rest?”

“Can’t say.”

“Can you tell me anything!?” snaps Creasion. 

“Nope,” answers Sion, and shrugs. “If you want to blame someone, blame yourself.”

“Trust me, I am,” says Creasion, in an ice-cold tone of voice that’s sent plenty of demons cowering in the past. 

As he half-expected, his future self only laughs. 

“You know, usually people take this time to get to know their soulmate,” drawls Sion, knocking his book against his knee. “To find clues on who they are. You aren’t interested?”

“You know the answer already, don’t you?” 

“It’s been a few years.” Sion shrugs again. “I don’t remember this conversation word for word or anything.”

“I’m not interested in the person who apparently made me forget my goals,” Creasion says flatly. 

“What makes you think I did?” asks Sion, expression suddenly serious. It takes Creasion aback, but he doesn’t back down. 

“The fact that you’re here and not asleep in the dimensional rift.”

“Mm,” Sion hums noncommittedly. “It’s your prerogative to think that, but…” His expression twists into pure smugness, a snort escaping his throat. “You’ll never get laid if you’re all uptight like that.”

Creasion chokes. 

“ _I’m not interested in the person who made me forget my goals_ ,” Sion repeats in a mockingly high falsetto, before bursting out in a fit of laughter. “You - aha - really think that, don’t you? Ahaha…”

Despite himself, Creasion feels a flush creeping up his neck. He blames his soulmate’s body. 

It’s been less than five minutes and he’s already decided one of him is enough. Was this how Crea had always felt when dealing with him?

Sion peers at him, then snickers. “Are you blushing?”

“Shut up,” Creasion hisses. Sion watches, seemingly unconcerned- when he really should be, because… “You don’t have a Mana Maker anymore, do you?”

“Do I not?” says Sion, a pointedly innocent look on his face. It’s extremely irritating. 

“I can tell that by looking,” Creasion says flatly. His magical senses may be dulled, but he can see with his own two eyes that there’s no flame by his older self’s head. 

And conversely, he can feel, inside, that his soulmate has an incredible amount of power. 

(Which makes him rather nervous - but he could ponder over those implications later. Here, now, it would help him.)

“Can you?” 

Creasion rolls his eyes and strolls up to the bars. He raises a hand, intending to bend the bars open. If he could escape the cell and talk to others, he was sure that anyone would be more talkative than his future self. 

Only the moment he aims the magic at the bars, he feels backlash building. Some kind of anti-magic protection on the cell? He’s never seen or heard of such a thing. 

Too late, he tries to draw the power back, but to no avail-

A hiss of pain escapes Creasion’s mouth as he’s slammed harshly against the stone wall by a magical power wave. He slides down to the ground, breathing roughly. 

That was stupid of him. 

“You’re really stupid, aren’t you?” comments Sion, his mouth cracking into a thin smirk.

Creasion manages a glare up at him. 

“Or- just arrogant, I guess.” concedes the older boy with a shrug. He stands up - carelessly dropping the book in his hand back on the chair - and walks closer to the cell, pace casual. “You know there’s no one stronger than you. Even Rchimedes would be easy to defeat if only you had the resolve to kill him, easy to seal if only you could find him.”

Creasion bites the inside of his cheeks, but doesn’t respond, doesn’t move. 

His older self is right. He _had_ been arrogant. 

“But I’ll tell you a little fun tidbit.” Sion crouches down to Creasion’s eye level and smiles. “The person you’re wearing right now? He’s stronger than us at our peak. He’s stronger than _you_.”

Despite himself, Creasion can’t stop his eyes from widening. 

Sion laughs brightly. “You can’t believe me, can you?”

Creasion swallows, then starts, “I believe you-”

“-believe it, yes,” Sion cuts him off. “And I do believe it, because it’s the truth.”

Sion’s gaze is serious, his eyes set. Creasion can’t help but break eye contact, can’t help but stare at the ground, at his - his soulmate’s - thin legs clad in prison wear. 

“Is that why he’s imprisoned?” Creasion asks quietly. 

“Can’t say.”

Creasion grits his teeth, and goes for a low blow, voice sneering. “Is his power why you love him?”

There’s a loud, obnoxious noise of disbelief. “That’s clingy, Hero Creasion, so clingy. Who talks about love on a first date?”

Creasion rolls his eyes - because of course that was the response - and looks back up. “I don’t think this counts as a first date.”

“And now you’re playing hard to get.” Sion clicks his tongue, a look of disgust spreading across his face. “You’re a terrible date. If he were here, he’d tell you that for sure.”

“You realize you’re me?”

“Correction: you _were_ me,” Sion says cheerily. “I’m the new and improved version.”

Creasion snorts, out of disbelief more than anything else, then closes his eyes and settles against the stone wall. He couldn’t deal with this any longer. 

“Aw, don’t pout.”

Creasion ignores him. 

“I’m sure there’s some weird people out there into the whole unimpressed seriousman schtick. Somewhere.”

Creasion continues to ignore him. 

There’s blissful silence for some minutes. Creasion is almost relaxed - or well the most relaxed he can be in a situation like this - when- 

“You know, you said you weren’t interested in the person who made you forget your goals. But that’s not right, not really.”

Creasion can’t help but crack an eye open at that. He immediately regrets it when Sion gives him a shit-eating grin. 

“What, you interested after all?” Sion raises an eyebrow, then chuckles. “I guess I know you are.”

Creasion really hates talking with himself. 

Sighing, he gives in. “What do you mean by ‘not right’?”

“It’s true that he played a big part in my being able to be myself again,” Sion says, thankfully skipping past the mockery for asking the question in the first place. His eyes are distant, and strangely fond. “But. There’s a few people who helped me with that. It wasn’t all him.”

There’s only one thought that comes to mind at that revelation. 

“...Odd.” 

Sion smiles. “Yeah, to you it would be. The only friend you’ve ever had is Crea, after all.”

Creasion shrugs. He can’t deny that. 

“Give people a chance,” Sion says, “That’s the one thing I will say.”

Genuinely confused, Creasion frowns. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t fight for them.”

“I didn’t mean humanity as a whole,” says Sion dryly. He shakes his head with exaggeratedly slow motions, throwing his hands into the air. “Whatever. You’ll get it eventually.”

“Do I want to?” Creasion says, more rhetorically than anything else. 

He gets an answer anyways. 

“Yeah,” Sion says quietly. “You do.”

* * *

“So that conversation ended on a pretty nice note and all, but you’ve still got another twenty-three and something hours left to kill. Wanna play some UNO?”

Creasion glances up at his older self waving a deck of cards, and snorts. “Yeah, sure.”

* * *

And so Creasion spends most of his time in the future in his soulmate’s body playing cards with his future self. 

It gets rather boring, but his older self refuses to tell him a thing, so it’s not like he has anything better to do. 

“It’s better to have doubt, don’t you think?” says Sion. “To have the ability to choose.”

Creasion can see where he’s coming from - he, and thus Sion, have not had the best experiences with soulmates. 

But his future self _must_ know that if he dangles the carrot of peace (and the stick of dangerous power) in front of him, he would be dying to know what happened to bring him to this point. 

So Creasion observes. 

Not because he’s interested in his soulmate, but rather because he was interested in the future, and if his soulmate was anywhere near as powerful as his future self claimed, he would be key to Rchimedes’ defeat. 

His older self’s appearance isn’t much help. He doesn’t look much older than Creasion does normally - he might even begrudgingly admit his older self looks _younger_ , what with all his uncharacteristic cheer. It could be anywhere from one to ten years in the future. 

(His older self’s behaviour isn’t much help either, but it is very strange. 

As the hours go on, Sion yawns. He looks tired, looks normally well-rested. He rubs at his eyes, acting like he wants to go to sleep. 

Acting like he isn’t plagued by nightmares the moment he closes his eyes.)

Instead, Creasion notes his body’s height - slightly taller than his future self - his build - lithe, built more for agility than raw strength - and colouring - light skinned, brown-haired, he thinks? It’s hard to make out hair colour exactly without a mirror, in this dim light.

He cautiously feels out the body’s signature with his senses, and feels nothing particularly out of the ordinary, aside from the ridiculously high amount of mana. 

(It feels almost as though there’s two Mana Makers sitting in his stomach, and isn’t that a disturbing thought?

Maybe this boy - man - really was stronger than him.)

But all in all, when he returns to the past at midnight on that day, he hasn’t gathered much information, not even a name. 

He figures though, once he’s back in his proper body with all his senses - magical and otherwise - it would be easy to pick out the other boy if, when, they met. Someone with that much magical power would be hard to hide. 

Which is why he immediately decides to dismiss his soulmate from his mind. There was no point in thinking about it until the time came, he figures. 

Except he wakes up in bizarrely comfortable softness, and realizes his soulmate hasn’t dismissed him. 

* * *

Apparently, his soulmate had spent the day in his body hunting down Fuwalions and Yudechicks. 

If he needed proof that his soulmate had some strength, this was it. Fuwalions were vicious things that killed villagers on the regular, and yet the other boy was both proficient and confident enough to go and hunt down enough to make a large, comfortable hammock in the trees with the fur from their manes. In an unfamiliar body. 

As for the yudechicks, there’s countless long strips of jerky hanging from the branches around him, softly glowing orbs of magefire deterring any airborne predators from stealing the food. There’s clearly magic involved, for the jerky to be this dry after one day, but even a Mana Maker can’t magic up food out of nowhere. 

Creasion feels… uncomfortable, really. That a stranger has been traipsing around in his body, that he’s gone as far as to do all these things for him in what little time he had. 

(That he had clearly been _that_ desperate to show that he cared.)

Still, the supplies are appreciated, he supposes. 

When Creasion gets up from the hammock and glances around, he notices one final gift that had been left behind for him. 

Words, letters, scrawled onto the tree bark with a sharp knife. 

Creasion examines the letters with an intense gaze. 

“Mm,” he says finally, “I can’t read this at all.”

* * *

Creasion takes the jerky when he moves on, ever chasing after Rchimedes’ tail, but he leaves the hammock and the message. 

The hammock, because it was too bulky, and the message, because scraping off the bark was too much of a pain for a message he might maybe be able to decode one day. 

(He regrets that, years later for him, a millennium for everyone else, when he realizes the words from back then must’ve simply been modern script. 

But by then, he’s long since forgotten the words he couldn’t understand at the time.)

Not long after that, he finally manages to catch up with Rchimedes, manages to seal him away with himself. 

In his last moments of consciousness, he wonders if he had just dreamt up what happened on his twentieth birthday. Or if he had changed the course of time - if his loop, for whatever reason, wasn’t set in stone.

In his next moments of consciousness, he realizes he hadn’t. 

* * *

Creasion - Ros now - understands what his older self meant by more people than just his soulmate changing him. 

Alba, weak, short Alba who couldn’t possibly be his soulmate, makes him want to be himself again. To Alba’s detriment oftentimes, but Alba doesn’t leave. Whines, gets angry, but never storms off forever, never declares their partnership void. 

Ros sticks by Alba because he’s interesting, and because he feels like himself again when he messes with the other hero. Alba sticks by Ros because… his soldier helps him sometimes? He thinks a hero can’t leave his soldier, no matter that it’s the soldier protecting the hero?

Whatever the reason, they journey for months together, and it’s the most fun Ros has had in years. 

(He still has nightmares, still can’t sleep soundly, but poking Alba out of his slumber in the wee hours of the night when he’s stuck awake makes him feel better, somehow. 

Misery loves company, and all that.)

It’s another sleepless late night out in the wastelands when they talk about soulmates for the first time. It’s right when they’re lying down side-by-side on their bedrolls, a cloudy, starless sky spread above their heads. 

“Hey, Soldier,” Alba says suddenly. 

“What is it, Hero?” asks Ros, “Is the dark too sca-wy? Do you need me to hold your hand to the bathroom?”

“No! I’m fine!” 

“Then stop being so noisy, honestly, Hero. Some people are trying to sleep.”

A sputter. “But you were the one to wake me up-“

“-You can’t become a good hero if you put the blame on others,” Ros chides, clicking his tongue. “Haven’t you learned anything?”

“But- you were _literally_ the one to-“ Alba cuts himself off and sighs. “I’m too tired for this.”

A wise decision. 

“What were you going to say?” Ros asks. 

He hears Alba shuffling on his bedroll, and from the corner of his eye, sees him turn to face him. 

“I thought that if you’re going to keep me awake, we might as well talk,” mumbles Alba, then more loudly, “We’ve been travelling together for months now, but I don’t know anything about you, you know.”

“I don’t like mixing my work and my private life,” responds Ros, lying through his teeth because since he started travelling with Alba, his only private life has been with hi-

“What private life!? We spend all day together!”

-A retort just on time. Ros can’t help but chuckle. 

“Well, I don’t mind talking about some stuff,” Ros concedes. He rolls over to face the other boy. “What do you want to know?”

“Oh,” says Alba, looking visibly surprised even in the dim lighting. He furrows his brows. “Then I guess- do you have a family?”

“My mother died when I was a baby,” Ros answers truthfully, then, equally truthfully- “My father murdered my best friend, tried to murder me, then slaughtered my entire hometown. I spent a lot of time trying to track him down and bring him to justice.”

As Ros expected, Alba’s expression morphs from sympathetic to put out. 

“If you didn’t want to say, you could’ve just _said_ ,” complains Alba, and Ros laughs. 

“Now now, don’t pout, Hero.” Ros smiles. “What about you? You said you wanted to make your mother proud before, but you never mention your father.”

Alba looks surprised again. “You remember that?”

“Unlike certain heroes, I try to get to know the people I’m travelling with.”

“That isn’t my fault, right!?” Alba exclaims, “It’s not my fault you don’t tell me anything, right!?”

“What are you saying, Hero?” Ros twists his face into one of derision. “I’m telling you plenty- it’s not my fault you won’t believe me.”

“It’s obviously all lies…” Alba mutters under his breath, though clearly audible in the silence of the night. He sighs, and continues, “I don’t know my dad that well.”

“Oh?”

“He’s a traveller, only visited home once every few months,” explains Alba, eyes flicking downwards. “He’s more like… a weird uncle than a dad. Mom loves him, she’s gotta, they’re soulmates and all, but I…” A shrug, his blanket rustling. “I don’t know.”

A moment of silence, two, then Ros opens his mouth and- “Does she have to?”

Alba blinks at him. “Huh?”

“Love him, I mean,” Ros clarifies, face set. “Just because they’re soulmates?”

“Well I mean, uh,” stumbles Alba, looking flustered. “That’s what they all say.”

“What do you say, Hero?” asks Ros.

Alba still looks a little flustered, but he pauses, studying Ros’ expression intently. Ros can see the other boy swallow, glance down, can see that he’s genuinely considering the question.

“I think…” Alba says finally, carefully, bringing his eyes back up to meet Ros’, “I think that seems silly.”

“That so, Hero.” Ros smiles, not breaking eye contact. “I think so too.”

Eyes darting to the side, Alba flushes a bit, looking pleased. He swallows again, then says, “You know your soulmate already, right, Soldier?”

“No,” Ros replies, again truthfully.

“What?” Alba says, voice bleeding surprise, “Are you still under twenty?”

“No, I turned twenty” - a millennium ago - “not too long ago. But I spent the entire time playing UNO with other me, and didn’t get the chance to see what my soulmate looked like.”

Alba bursts out into snickers. “You aren’t even trying to make it sound realistic anymore.”

Ros’ mouth curves up fondly. It wasn’t his fault the truth was unrealistic.

It _was,_ however, Alba’s fault for not believing him, so Ros kicks him in the shin through their blankets. Alba’s snickers peter off into a wince and intelligible grumbling.

“What do you want from your soulmate?” Ros asks, interrupting the grumbling. He’s mildly curious, what the snarky, too-weak hero with a sense of justice wants from his ideal partner.

(And well, he expects it to be fun to mock.)

“Me?” Alba says, “I kinda always thought it’d be unfair to push expectations on them…”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, Hero,” Ros drawls, “Just admit it- you want a cute busty older girl to take care of you don’t you?” He opens his eyes all wide and innocent-like, and switches into a high, saccharine tone. “There there, it’ll be alright, Alba-san. Here, I’ll wipe your tears away.” He switches back to a normal tone and sneers. “Hero, you’re such a pervert. Don’t look at me.”

“I don’t want that at all!? Why are you looking at me like that!?” cries Alba. He sighs, “If you have to know, I guess one thing I want is…” He trails off into a mumble. “I guess I’d like a guy more…”

“Oh, my bad, Hero,” Ros says without missing a beat. “You want a muscly handsome guy to take care of you then, don’t you?” He takes a breath and speaks in a low tone. “Oh, Alba-”

“-You just changed the gender! I still don’t have any fantasies like that, okay!” Alba cuts in, then sighs again. “I really don’t know what I want.”

“That so.” Ros rolls back onto his back, because he didn’t want to be looking at Alba while saying this, then- “Well, don’t worry. If it’s you we’re talking about, Hero, I’m sure you’ll get someone you like.”

Alba goes quiet for an instant, before saying, voice full of emotion, “...Soldie-”

“-Because your standards are so low.”

“Soldier!”

* * *

Ros likes Alba. But he wouldn’t want him as his soulmate or anything, even if it were possible, which it wasn’t, considering how the other hero was tiny, and completely lacked any magical power. 

He reminds himself of that fact, the first time they find themselves thrown into jail, hero and soldier outfits swapped for black-and-white prison stripes he remembers well from that one day not too long ago. 

He clings onto that thought, as he finds himself getting too close. As he finds “Hero” has become a term of endearment, rather than the distancing measure it was supposed to be. As he smiles too fondly when Alba manages to defeat a slime for the first time. 

Eventually, he mutters it to himself when he’s alone, in the hopes that saying it out loud will make him believe it more. Will make him stop treating Alba like he did Crea-

(-like he did his father-)

-like he did someone he lov-

(It doesn’t work, of course.

As if if matters whether Alba is his soulmate. That doesn’t affect what he feels.)

He feels stupid for even trying when Alba’s guts spill through the air and his heart feels like it’s getting wrenched out of his chest.

But it was alright.

Ros may have had his revelation too late, may have finally admitted to himself how much he cared for the other hero when everything was about to end, but it was alright.

Alba would be okay without him. He had a strong will, and eventually, he could become strong in power as well, Ros was sure.

So-

“Do your best, Alba.” A smile he doesn’t feel, to a hero who looks as anguished as Ros is on the inside. “It was fun.”

He disappears into the dimensional rift, a scream of _Ros_ echoing in his ears as he goes.

* * *

Alba isn’t his soulmate, because soon he’d just be another dead friend of a millennium past, like Crea.

Because soon Ros would be falling into an unending sleep with his father, because Alba might be his best friend in this time, but he still can’t bring himself to sacrifice his only family, his first friend, to stay with him.

 _It wasn’t just my soulmate who changed me,_ his future self had said, and here, now, Ros could agree with that for sure. 

He’s sad, he’s miserable, but he can’t regret it, because he can’t bear to kill Rchimedes and whatever was left of Crea within him.

Still, Ros can’t help but wish that those carefree days had lasted longer, that he didn’t have to seal himself again to save the world from the demon lord’s terror.

The monkey’s paw closes, and there comes Elf November to release them both.

* * *

Alba is taller. 

That’s the first thought that goes through his mind when he sees Alba again, and he gets stuck on it for a little while.

Alba is taller.

When Ros gets closer, when he punches Alba in the stomach half-because of his own tumultuous feelings, and half-because he missed doing it, he realizes that Alba is still a bit shorter than him.

But.

Still.

Alba is taller. 

(He could get a little more taller, enough to overshoot Ros.)

And stronger too, he realizes later. No longer is Alba a weak hero who falters against Nisepandas, whose sense of justice takes him past his limits. Alba has the strength to protect now, and doesn’t need Ros at his back to drag him out of sometimes-literally sticky situations.

He has the strength to protect _Ros_ now, to stand by his side, and the fact that gives Ros a warm, fuzzy feeling makes him want to crack Alba’s ribs one after another until the stupid emotion disappears.

Regardless.

Alba doesn’t have magic.

He silences the voice in his head with that one fact. Alba doesn’t have magic, and where could he get a Mana Maker in the future anyways? Ros certainly wasn’t going to make one for him. He needed to stop making weird connections between things that weren’t there. 

Then Alba makes a grand return, one eye shining red, the strength of both Hero Creasion and Demon Lord Rchimedes a roaring blaze within him-

_He’s twice as strong as us at the height of our power._

-and Ros goes a little numb. 

(He liked Alba being a little stronger, that they could stand on the same level now. 

But if Alba zooms past him like this-

Where does he stand now?)

* * *

The truth is, Ros has never liked soulmates. 

When it goes well, when they love each other in the way everyone expects, it ends with Rchimedes going crazy, desperate for Cecily to come back, slaughtering countless because no one mattered but her-

When it goes badly, when there wasn’t romantic love, when perhaps they were meant to be the best of friends but social pressure pushed them into marrying regardless, because _of course_ they were meant to be-

It ends with Crea, abandoned by a father gone traveling the world and a mother married to another woman in the town next over, who both pretend he doesn’t exist. 

And with his nightmares now plagued with images of Alba being sliced in two, horror gripping his heart every night at images he _knows_ are fake, _knows_ could never happen anymore, not with Alba’s magical power…

Ros is terrified to find out what he’ll become if he loses Alba. 

(He doesn’t want to go back to being Creasion. He doesn’t want to feel numb anymore, doesn’t want to be boring and dull and have the weight of the world resting on his shoulders.

But he knows he doesn’t always get what he wants in life.) 

Of course, he’s self-aware enough now that it’s too difficult to tell himself that it _hadn’t_ been Alba, that day in the future. 

Either way, he understands that it doesn’t really matter whether or not Albs is his soulmate proper. 

(He loves him either way.)

* * *

There’s another reason, another dumber, stupider reason, that he doesn’t like the idea of soulmates. 

Ros wants to picked for himself, not because some nonsensical natural phenomenon said they ought to be together. 

It’s ridiculous. It shouldn’t _matter._ He shouldn’t care about this in the first place. What was romance, compared to the fate of the world?

But he does care, and so there’s a zero percent chance he’ll ever tell Alba about his suspicions, a zero percent chance he’ll try to sway the other boy to him with the allure of fate. 

(Especially since there’s still that small possibility that he’s wrong, that fate dictates that Alba and Ros are tied with different people. 

If Alba chooses Ros, unbiased, then some unknown soulmate shouldn’t matter.)

* * *

It’s Alles Strahl that shows him that Alba, at least, was willing to risk burning down the world for him. 

They only know each other in passing, which is why Ros is surprised when she calls out to him one day, in the castle as he’s returning from tutoring Alba. 

“Yo, Creasion-sama or whatever,” she says with a wave. 

“Alles,” he greets politely enough, coming to a halt a few paces from her in the hallway. 

“I heard it was your birthday a couple days ago, right?” she asks. 

“Yeah.”

He had spent the day in Alba’s cell with Rchi and Crea, mercilessly teasing Alba for not having a birthday gift for him while the other boy whined it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t go outside. 

It had been wonderful. Alba had made the loveliest expressions, and he used the pretense of punishing him to be more touchy with the hero than he usually was. 

(Both Rchi and Crea looked at him with dead, judgmental eyes - _why do we have to see your PDA,_ they conveyed without saying anything out loud - whenever he drew Alba into his lap, but it was worth it.)

“So, I have this gift for you,” Alles says cheerily, “Happy belated birthday!”

She thrusts a silver recording device at him, and Ros accepts it, blinking. 

“What is it?” he asks. 

Alles just grins, so shrugging, he presses the play button. 

“ _Ros isn’t smiling!_ ” comes Alba’s voice from the device, and Ros almost drops it in his surprise. 

“It’s a recording of the whole conversation right after you disappeared,” explains Alles, “I figured you’d get a laugh out of it.” Her eyes suddenly narrow, calculating. “You’re reacting differently than I expected.”

Ros quickly composes himself, because in many ways, Alles and him were cut from the same cloth. She wouldn’t hesitate to jump on any perceived weaknesses from even the legendary hero, if it meant she could amuse herself. 

“Just surprised,” Ros says, and it’s easy to let a sly smirk spread across his face. “I look forward to seeing what’s on the tape. Thanks, Alles.”

“No problem, legendary hero,” Alles says with a grin. “Tell me what you think sometime.”

She walks off, hand raised in a goodbye, and Ros is left alone in the hallway with a recording he’s _desperate_ to listen to when he’s alone. 

He hightails it back to his inn. 

* * *

Alba, the Alba before their year apart, the Alba he had travelled with for months, had declared he’d revive the Demon Lord for him. 

Part of him, a small part of him now, is annoyed. Offended, even, that Alba would dare risk the world and invalidate Ros’ sacrifice just for him. 

Another part of him argues back. That Alba has clearly been smart about it, that if all he had cared about was getting Ros back then he would’ve dragged him out right away. That Alba wanted to protect both the world and him, and that those were not mutually exclusive. 

The majority of him, however, doesn’t care either way. He’s just blissfully happy. 

He presses the play button again. 

“ _Ros isn’t smiling!_ ” comes the tinny voice again, and the statement is very, very inaccurate, because there’s a wide smile on his face he can’t seem to wipe away. 

He plays it another time. 

“ _Ros isn’t-_ ”

“-Sii-tan, are you back-”

“- _smiling!_ ”

The scene. Ros, lying on his stomach on his bed with a recording device in his hands, the soppy smile on his face rapidly devolving into unadulterated mortification. Crea, paused in the doorway, staring at the other boy with a flat, purposely blank expression. 

The room falls silent, both Ros and Crea frozen solid staring at each other. 

Finally, Crea breaks free and slowly walks up to the other boy, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. 

“...Sii-tan,” Crea says gently, “Stalking is a crime. Setting bugs is a crime. Let’s get you help, okay?”

Blood rushes to Ros’ face. “I’m going to beat you to death with this recorder.”

Crea yelps and jumps back. 

* * *

Ros manages to clear up the misunderstanding through playing the whole audio clip and through liberal application of violence. 

He’s sure Crea has wiped the incident from his mind now, and if not, _he needed to have another little talk with his friend._

But despite the mishap, he’s still in an extremely good mood when he goes to visit Alba that month, and Alba can probably tell, because he’s not as harsh on the other boy’s homework as he usually is. 

And just as Ros predicts, Alba asks why. 

“Hey, Ros,” Alba says curiously, and no doubt because Alba’s learned at this point, slightly nervously, “Did something good happen?”

Ros smiles, a wide, teethy grin, and he can spot the exact moment Alba regrets asking. 

“Alles gave me a birthday gift, you see,” he drawls, leaning back in his chair. 

“Alles-san did?” Alba says, looking genuinely confused. “What did she give you?”

Ros whips out the recording device from a pocket, and enjoys the moments it takes for the blood to drain from Alba’s face. 

Alba lunges at Ros from across the desk, but Ros has already danced backwards - Alba just ends up with his face slamming into a chair. 

“Ouch,” mumbles Alba, sprawled on the ground. 

Grin still wide, Ros presses play.

“ _I’m going to save Ros- no matter how long it takes!_ ”

A strangled, unintelligible sound comes from the other hero. He jumps back up to his feet and lunges at Ros again, blood returning to his face as it goes beet red. “Stop that!”

“Why?” asks Ros, easily dodging Alba’s wild grabs for the device.

He flicks a different switch, then presses play once again.

“ _-Ros isn’t smil-_ ”

That’s when the device explodes, which Ros mainly registers from the loud noise and the sudden stinging pain in his hand.

Ros stares in surprise at his now-empty hand still held high in the air, blood beginning to drip down his arm. 

“I-I-I-” Alba stammers, clearly panicked, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh, please don’t be mad-” He grabs Ros’ injured hand and continues babbling, a green glow surrounding their hands, “I just wanted it to stop and then it-”

The green glow is flickering and weak, Alba still not too in control of his power yet. Ros smiles and yanks his hand out of Alba’s grip. 

Alba looks distraught, but Ros’ smile doesn’t falter. With a burst of his own power, he heals his hand himself- the wounds were superficial, his innate power was more than enough to deal with it.

“It’s okay, Hero. This is why you’re learning control,” he says gently, then chirps, “And anyways, just in case, I made copies!”

Ros whips out another recorder from a pocket, and Alba, looking horrified, buries his face in his hands.

* * *

Teasing Alba is fun, but it can get repetitive - he’s not a fan of beating a dead horse. He lets Alba off after a little while more, though he decides to tell Alba it’s a lesson now, that the other boy needs to learn to not react even when his emotions are rising high.

Surprisingly, Alba manages it, though Ros isn’t sure how much of it is true control, and how much of it is just his horror at the idea of unintentionally hurting Ros overwhelming any embarrassment. But Ros has no way to know, so he figures he’ll give Alba some credit and say he passed this lesson.

(And Alba does tend to pass his lessons. For starting off knowing only fractions, Alba absorbs content at a frightening pace. 

Perhaps it was petty of him, but when he learned that Alba needed him as his tutor, he was relieved. That even as strong as Alba was now, that even when Alba declared that he’d go his own way-

-that he didn’t need or want Ros anymore-

-there was still something he could offer Alba. His knowledge. 

Unfortunately, the use of that something is rapidly disappearing.)

They’re back to deskwork now though, and Ros, head leaning against his hand and dead bored, has a question.

“Why is it so embarrassing, anyways?”

“We’re still talking about this?” mutters Alba in dismay, then sighs. “Why _wouldn’t_ it be embarrassing?”

“Aren’t you always saying stuff like that, Hero?” Ros says, “You know, stuff like ‘A hero is everyone’s star of hope!’ and all that.”

“I’ve never said anything like that!” sputters Alba.

“Really? I could’ve sworn it was you…” Ros puts a hand on his chin, contemplative. “Maybe I mixed you up with someone else.”

Alba scowls at that, scribbling something down on his page with a bit more force than necessary. “ _Anyways_. It was embarrassing because well,” he trails off into a mumble, “you probably were weirded out hearing all that, right?”

“No, I was so happy I wanted to die.”

Jerking up, Alba’s pen clatters out of his hand, his eyes wide. “What did you say?”

“I said I wanted to die,” Ros deadpans, “Keep up, Hero.”

“No, no, you definitely said something else before that.” Alba presses, but Ros doesn’t budge an inch. Instead, he subjects the hero to his best look of scorn. 

“You’re really the worst, aren’t you? Making someone listen to all that-”

“-Weren’t _you_ the one to replay it again and again-”

“-And now doubting what they say? Honestly.”

“...You’re right,” Alba says after a moment, then smiles softly. “I shouldn’t doubt what you said. Thanks, Ros.”

Based on how happy the other hero looked, Ros could guess which of his words Alba had decided not to doubt.

That was fine though, he supposes.

(Ros finds himself smiling too.)

* * *

Ros still has nightmares. 

Crea, surprisingly - or not-so-surprisingly, considering he remembers nothing - does not. 

So the mornings after his dreams claw at his mind particularly harshly, the mornings where he can close his eyes and still see Crea burst in two and Alba sliced in half, it’s Crea who always sees through his thin façade of irritation. 

It’s Crea, cheery and straightforward to the point of fault, who takes Ros’ half-hearted abuse and tries to make him feel better. 

It’s no different that morning. 

“So,” Crea says brightly, as soon as they check out of the inn they stayed in the night before. “I was thinking we should head to Bear Creek Village next.”

“Where’s that,” replies Ros, voice flat, “and why do we want to go to a village that sounds even more backwoods than Hero’s hometown?”

“Don’t say that, Sii-tan,” whines Crea, “It’s only a couple hours away from here! I was talking with the receptionist lady last night, and she said that” - Crea pumps a fist in the air - “it’s known for their super pretty, super nice saintess!”

“Wow!” Ros gasps, mouth falling open in exaggerated shock. “I can’t believe it!” His voice goes flat again. “I didn’t think it was possible to make me any less interested in going.”

“Now now.” Crea wags a finger knowingly, and the smug look on his face makes Ros want to jab his fingers into his friend’s eyes. “Guess what this saintess does?”

“I assume religious work.”

“Nope!” says Crea, sing-songy. “Saintess is just a nickname. She’s the owner of a sweets shop that sells wild chicken egg tarts you can only get i- Sii-tan!?”

Ros has already zoomed quite a few steps ahead of Crea. He glances back. 

“What are you doing?” he demands, impatient. “Let’s get there before it gets dark.”

Crea laughs, and jogs to catch up. 

* * *

They make it there by mid-afternoon, and to Ros’ pleasure, there’s still some egg tarts left. 

The so-called saintess is quite personable, he supposes, and the egg tarts she makes are amazing, but he has little opinion of her aside from that. 

Crea, it seems, disagrees. 

“I think I’m in love,” Crea says dreamily, legs kicking back and forth on the bench they sit on. 

Ros takes a bite of his egg tart. “Are you stupid?”

“She really is so nice!”

“You’ve talked to her for less than five minutes,” Ros says, toneless. “And it’s her job to be polite.”

“But still!” whines Crea, jumping up from the bench. He clenches a fist. “I think I’m gonna confess!”

“Are you _stupid?_ ” Ros repeats. He tosses the rest of his egg tart into his mouth before punching Crea in the stomach with a swift right hook. 

Crea bends over in half and groans, hands wrapping around his stomach. 

Ros continues, voice derisive. “It would just be a bother to her.”

“Urgh…” Crea mumbles, still bent over, then sighs. “I guess you’re right.” He straightens back up. “Now that I think about it I don’t really know her, after all!”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.” Ros rolls his eyes. 

There’s an amused, elderly laugh from a few paces beside them. Ros turns to look, and blinks. 

“You’ve fallen for the Saintess too, young man?” says an old lady, smiling indulgently. 

“Too?” Crea repeats, tilting his head to the side. 

“Lot of outsiders who visit fall for her,” the old lady explains indulgently, “But I’m afraid they’re all politely rebuffed - she won’t accept anyone but her soulmate, you see.”

“I see…” Crea smiles. “Thanks for telling me!”

Crea being Crea, he’s drawn into small talk with the old lady for some time. Ros ignores them and works on savouring his next egg tart. 

He’s brushing the crumbs off from his hands when Crea finally flops back down next to him. 

“Ahh, that was a really interesting chat!” Crea exclaims, grinning. “Don’t you think, Sii-tan?”

“Huh?” Ros obviously hadn’t been listening at all, but Crea never pays attention to things like that. He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I really like hearing about the way people live in different places,” Crea says contemplatively, “...Even though it seems like not much has changed in the last millennium…”

Just let that one slide, Crea. 

Crea continues, “I guess people still wait for their soulmates even nowadays, huh?” 

Ros gives him a noncommittal grunt. 

“Are you doing that, Sii-tan?”

“I like who I like,” Ros says dismissively. “If they’re my soulmate, so be it, if not, so be it.”

“What about Alba-san?”

Ros eyes him with a withering gaze. “What does Hero have to do with anything?”

Crea smiles brightly, his hands jumping up into a defensive pose. “Just my own curiosity?”

Ros is still skeptical, but he sighs and answers the question nonetheless. “...He doesn’t care either, I think.”

 _I think that’s silly_ , Ros remembers Alba saying one starless night, after the older hero asked him about soulmates _needing_ to love each other. 

(And doesn’t it say something that Ros hasn’t forgotten it?)

“I see,” says Crea, contemplative again. Then he brightens. “So when are you confessing?”

“Would you prefer to be drowned, or to be left in the wilds for the bears to get you?”

“Wow, no hesitation!”

Ros smiles sweetly. “So? Which do you want?”

Crea puts a hand on his chin, pensive. “Well, if I had to choose, I’d probably take my chances with the bea- wait wait, no no.” Crea shakes his head back and forth, hand falling back into his lap. “C’mon, I just want to see my little brother be hap- _ouch_.”

Ros continues grinding his heel into Crea’s foot with no hesitation, even as Crea turns to him with teary eyes and a pleading look. 

But then Crea says, quietly, “Look, it’s me,” and Ros finds himself stopping. 

He grits his teeth for a moment or two, but sighs and gives in. 

“It’s not the time,” Ros says simply, then expands further. “Hero needs me to teach him - no one else has used the hero’s power before, even if Rchimedes the 2nd could teach him to master his demon lord powers. He can’t afford me making it awkward.”

“So you’re waiting for him to graduate?” probes Crea. 

“I wouldn’t say that,” hedges Ros, because he doesn’t want Crea bothering him every moment after Alba goes free. 

“Ah!” Crea slams his fist onto his palm. “I get it! You want _him_ to-”

“-You said you preferred the bears to drowning, right?”

“...I’m sorry.”

* * *

Ros is sure that Alba will be the one to make a move first, awkward and fumbling and pretending like he isn’t. 

So since he’s so sure, there’s no need for him to go out of his way to _confess_ , perish the thought. 

(His pride rankles at the idea of Alba turning him down, and so his pride ensures that Alba will make a move first.)

He vaguely expects _something_ to change when Alba ‘graduates’, but Alba’s graduation is too fraught with unexpected threats for either of them to spare much thought to anything else. 

Of course, he may have gotten slightly distracted fighting Alba, because if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have fought him until they were both beaten to a pulp. 

He couldn’t help it. He loved it. With the 2nd’s Mana Maker equipped, he was fighting with the full strength of Hero Creasion, and Alba _still kept up_. 

(And he managed to keep up as well, despite the double-load of mana within Alba’s body.)

“We’re stupid, aren’t we?” Alba says contemplatively. They’re lying next to each other, bandaged from head to toe. 

“You’re stupid,” Ros quickly corrects. 

“We’re _both_ lying here useless,” Alba points out reasonably, and so Ros, naturally, clicks his tongue. 

“I would’ve been fine if you had just let me beat you up.”

“It was my graduation exam! I didn’t want to stay in that cell any longer!” Alba complains. 

Ros would raise an eyebrow, if his eyebrows could move behind the mass of bandages. “Are you saying that you would’ve let me beat you up if that wasn’t the case?”

Silence. Silence, and Ros couldn’t even turn his neck to see Alba’s expression- not that he would’ve been able to make it out either way. 

Ros finds his mouth curving into a large, satisfied smirk. “Did I hit the nail on the head?”

He expects an annoyed denial from the hero, a scathing retort in return. 

“...I-It’s not like I don’t already let you normally,” stammering and unsure, is most definitely _not_ what he expects. 

He wants to probe further, figure out _exactly_ what Alba meant by that, but the 2nd’s wife steps in at that moment, and the opportunity to ask is lost. 

Ros slots the conversation away for future reference. 

* * *

Things are hectic for a little while after that, what with Elf November and Alba’s insistence that he wanted to research the strange demon’s last moments. 

Ros supports him, even as he doesn’t really get it. 

Still, eventually, just as Ros predicted, Alba finally makes an awkward, fumbling, move.

They’re out in the wilderness near Lake’s hometown, standing on a quiet, rocky lakebed. PAlba’s scouting out potential research station locations. 

That’s when Alba comments, staring out at the small, but serene lake-

“You never did lie to me about your past, did you?” 

“Hm?” Ros blinks at him. “Where’s this coming from?”

“I don’t know, I just.” Alba shrugs. “I’ve been chatting a lot with Cecily-san and Crea-san lately I guess, and I realized a lot of the fake stories you told me weren’t really.”

“Wow, it only took you two and a half years.” Ros snorts. “You’re the worst.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I won’t doubt you again,” Alba says, hands flying up, tone placating. 

“In that case, you owe me a hundred thousand yen from back whe-”

“-I won’t doubt you _within reason_ ,” Alba quickly corrects, and Ros can’t help the small chuckle that escapes his throat. 

The conversation stalls. 

Alba crouches down, staring down into murky water. He pokes at the surface, letting the ripples spread out quite some way before he clears his throat and speaks again. 

“So I was wondering.”

“Yes, Hero?”

“I was wondering,” Alba repeats, still not looking up at Ros. “If- what you said before about your soulmate was true too.”

“What did I say before?” asks Ros, half because he genuinely doesn’t really remember, and half because he doesn’t really want to answer. 

“That, well, you spent the entire day playing UNO with your future self,” Alba says, and more quietly, “That you don’t know who he- who they are.”

“Ah, that.” Ros crouches down next to Alba. “...Do I have to answer?”

“Huh?” 

“Will it change anything?” Ros asks, “If I say yes, I _do_ know, it was you-”

Ros can’t see Alba’s face from this angle, but he can still see Alba’s ears redden. “-I wasn’t asking that, exactly…”

“You shouldn’t try playing coy, Hero, you suck at it,” Ros informs him, then continues, “If I say that it was you, I guess that’d be a happy ending” - Alba whips his head towards Ros at this words, face flushed and mouth open, but Ros doesn’t even pause - “But what if I say I really don’t know? Or worse, that I know it was someone else?”

Ros reaches a hand out, pushes Alba’s hair back, tucks it behind an ear, and smiles. “Would that change your feelings?”

“I…” 

Slowly, he leans in closer, presses their foreheads together. “Would it, Alba?”

Alba looks two seconds away from exploding, and if Ros was feeling truthful, his face was feeling rather hot as well. 

But the other hero manages to swallow, manages to compose himself a little. 

“...No,” Alba mumbles, then louder, more confidently, “No.”

Something warm bubbles up in his chest. 

“I feel the same way,” Ros says, and he finds he can’t stop smiling even if he wanted to. 

Alba, staring back with an all-too-soft gaze and a stupidly dopey smile, seems to be a similar state. 

* * *

“So wait,” says Alba, some time later as they’re walking back to the village. “Does this mean we’re dating now?”

“Yes,” answers Ros, and smiles sweetly. “If you even think about looking at someone else I’ll break your ribs, Hero.”

“Wait, even _think_?” Alba raises an eyebrow. “I think I can’t help but look at other people on a daily basis.”

“I meant what I said.” 

“Illogical!” Alba slumps down after making his retort, but soon straightens back up. “Though…”

He glances back at Ros and grins brightly. 

“If _you_ look at anyone else, I’ll break your ribs too, Ros.”

Ros blinks, surprised, but he finds his mouth curving into a smile in return. 

“Understood, Hero.”

* * *

There’s a year and a half left until Alba’s twentieth birthday, but Ros can’t say he cares much. 

He wouldn’t let anyone get between them. 

(And he hopes that Alba feels the same.)


End file.
